Youth Music announces new grants of over £3.3m
Grants totalling £3.3m will be awarded to 70 music-making organisations across the country, bringing the total amount allocated over the last year to £10.2m.
Download a full list of organisations receiving investment here.
Projects looking after children and young people in challenging circumstances have particularly benefited, in line with our vision to ensure that all children have access to music-making opportunities, regardless of background or circumstances. These include children coping with disability and special educational needs, seriously ill children in hospital, young people in care and those facing homelessness or exclusion.
Eighty per cent of young people taking part in projects supported by the music charity are experiencing challenging circumstances. Youth Music now reaches over 90,000 children every year, who participate in almost 400 music projects across the country.
In the latest grant allocations, we have also focused on early years music-making, with support for a number of music projects for children aged five and under. Early years music provision is not covered by the government’s National Plan for Music Education, so these children may not be guaranteed a music education anywhere else until they reach school.
Music-making organisations awarded grants include Basement Studio in Bristol, for a city-wide youth and music project for 13 to 19 year olds living in challenging circumstances and Creative Arts East, which will provide access to music-making for up to nine hundred young people living in rural isolation across Norfolk and Suffolk.
A grant awarded to the early years Little Music Stars project run by the organisation Pedestrian is for very young children attending Sure Start Children’s Centres in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire. The project aims to improve the social and emotional development of very young vulnerable children through enabling young parents, including fathers, to participate in and contribute to their child's development and learning.
Samantha Whelan, Director of Pedestrian said:
“We are delighted to receive the support of Youth Music for Little Music Stars. Digital music-making is often only available to young people and adults, so we are very pleased to be working with Children’s Centres to extend this offer to very young children. The project will be working with some of the most vulnerable families in the East Midlands, including fathers. We are excited about improving the quality and accessibility of digital music-making for them, and raising awareness of the positive impacts on development and wellbeing it can bring about."
Troy Tanska, Manager of Basement Studio said:
"We are so delighted. For young people this means we can use music to build trust and transferable skills which help them cope better with difficult circumstances they are experiencing. Support from Youth Music is about much more then funding for us, it recognises the expertise in our organisation, helps us develop in a sustainable way, and endorses the young people-led ethos and partnership work that is at the heart of what we do."
Matt Griffiths, Youth Music’s Executive Director said:
“We focus on early years and young people in challenging circumstances because we want see every child being able to access music-making opportunities in their local area and these children are frequently overlooked. We support projects working across all music genres, and we know that many young people find these opportunities to make music exciting and rewarding, frequently increasing their engagement at school and with potential future employment opportunities. We wish all these organisations the very best with their exciting new music-making ventures.”
In July, we announced a streamlining of our grants programme to encourage greater diversity and partnership working within the Music Education Hubs. The grants announced today are the final allocations under the previous system. Applications under the new streamlined programme are now being considered with a view to announcing further grants in January 2014.
Photo: Children from Valley Road Community Primary School, Sunderland attend an early years music project run by Flo-culture.